BRIBERY SCANDAL SPREADING IN ITALY

ROME -- Italy's bribery scandal spread to the state-controlled defense industry on Saturday with the arrest of the director of a major helicopter manufacturer.

Roberto d'Alessandro, the president of Agusta SpA, was arrested in the northern resort of Portofino and charged with extortion, the police said.

It was the first time that the state military industry had been implicated in the scandal over kickbacks paid by public and private businesses to politicians in return for public works contracts.

Customs police said the accusations against d'Alessandro involved a $1.5 million bribe paid for a contract to supply Agusta helicopters to the government's security services.

Since February 1992, when the corruption scandal broke with the arrest of a Socialist Party official in Milan, about 1,500 people have been arrested or interrogated as investigating magistrates have unwound a web of bribery and kickbacks tainting all major political parties.

Many state and private businesses have also been implicated, including ENI, the state-run energy conglomerate, and Fiat, Italy's biggest private company.

Agusta, formerly part of a bankrupt state holding company, recently became part of the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, Italy's largest employer. The helicopter company was already part of a separate corruption inquiry in Belgium, where a businessman has been accused of paying bribes to politicians to help Agusta secure a contract in that country.

Authorities are also investigating links between politicians and organized crime in the south of the country.

Among those implicated were government ministers, high-ranking company executives and powerbrokers including Giulio Andreotti, who has served seven times as prime minister and is one of Italy's most influential postwar politicians.

Andreotti has been accused of protecting the Mafia, but he has denied the charge.

The investigations and the arrest of so many political and business leaders have deepened a sense among many Italians that the political system implanted after World War II is badly in need of an overhaul.

Three opinion surveys published on Saturday indicated that between 58 and 76 percent of respondents favored changing the political system.